In audio intercepts from the front lines in Ukraine, Russian soldiers speak in shorthand of 200s to mean dead, 300s to mean wounded. The urge to flee has become common enough that they also talk of 500s — people who refuse to fight.
As the war grinds into its second winter, a growing number of Russian soldiers want out, as suggested in secret recordings obtained by The Associated Press of Russian soldiers calling home from the battlefields of the Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine.
The calls offer a rare glimpse of the war as it looked through Russian eyes — a point of view that seldom makes its way into Western media, largely because Russia has made it a crime to speak honestly about the conflict in Ukraine. They also show clearly how the war has progressed, from the professional soldiers who initially powered Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion to men from all walks of life compelled to serve in grueling conditions.
“There’s no f------ ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier told his brother from the front in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. “You just die like a f------ earthworm.”
Unlikely. The Ukrainians are literally fighting for their homes and their lives. While I’m sure they’re sick of warfare, it doesn’t follow that their morale would at all be similar.
A lot of them don’t want to fight. There are plenty of Ukrainian men, who abandoned their families and just ran away across the border.
Every society has its cowards
Citation needed.
Nah. Ukrainians are relying on conscription just like Russians are.
Many of them don’t want to die in a war they have a very good chance of losing.
I can’t speak to Ukrainian sentiment as a whole and can imagine that many see the value in defending the country, but I know there’s a lot who have escaped conscription and that it isn’t talked about much. When I provide things for refugees vs draft dodgers it’s a much different vibe. Refugees it’s like drop off at the Ukrainian church or association, but draft dodgers it’s like tell the contact what you have, they take a few days, then take it from the end of your driveway.
Russia has already lost the war i.e. their stated objectives.
The only remaining question is whether Ukrainian regains all it’s territory and secured an agreement, or if it stalemates e.g. 2014 - Feb. 2022.
I mean one of these stated objectives was “denazifying Ukraine,” so even entertaining some of these stated objectives is to buy in to propagandized notions. The first phase was definitely a disaster for Russia, the prolonging of the border conflict changes things though. WW1 was expected to be quick before it became the “never again” meat grinder it did. Russia’s objective is to keep Ukraine out of EU and NATO, if not win territory, and if they can prolong the war enough to achieve that then they would have something to show for the effort, whether or not they gain territory. Maybe they can’t do this but that’s the current state of things at least.
There’s been more information coming out about how the conflict may have been resolved in Spring 2022 if Ukraine had agreed not to join EU and NATO, but were pressured by Western allies not to engage with these negotiations and instead rely on the support and supply of weapons. Whether that potential Spring 2022 negotiation would have been in Ukrainian’s best interest I can’t say, probably not at the time, but the price paid for the war effort in human lives increases with every day of the conflict. Western politicians are becoming less supportive now, what happens if tides shift and Ukraine eventually negotiates with Russia but on far worse terms? This stuff is still all up in the air, I’m just not overly optimistic about this big Ukrainian victory that the western viewpoint is sort of leading to, it’s too much like a story arc we all love to hear. It’s likely it will end like any war does, people wondering how it could have led up to what it did and how pointless it was in the grand scheme of what it became.
Sorry you think this is a fact.
I hope you’re not including Crimea in this. Nobody realistically believes Ukraine has a chance of taking Crimea without foreign troops assisting them in combat.
Russia lost. There were objectives set at the start, and they are no longer capable of achieving them. Russia lost this just as much as the US lost Vietnam.
Crimea can be starved out, and Ukraine is close to getting what they need to do this. They need to be within 75mi of the M14 highway (plus a few more miles because you don’t want artillery to be right at the front line). From there, they can hit all supply lines headed west, which would include all of Crimea. The Ukranians have sent missiles into the Kerch bridge before and can keep doing it. Airplanes can’t keep the whole of Crimea supplied, and neither can the Sevastopol docks.
So basically, wherever that incursion is that keeps a <75mi range to the highway, everything to the west of that is no longer viable for Russia to hold. It might take a while to starve them out, but it can’t hold forever. Putin can choose to acknowledge this and pull out, but he’s more likely to take the Hitler solution of demanding every soldier fight to the last in order to save his own face.
Two weeks old account and spreading russian propaganda. Name a more iconic duo… I’ll wait.
You’re the only one spreading propaganda, lol. I’m trying to bring you back down to earth, but I can see you’re too far gone for that.
Remember this conversation when Ukraine surrenders. You are being manipulated without even realizing it.
We both know there’s no point returning to this conversation later. By then you’ll be already using another account to spread your bullshit, because you’re just too obvious.
That’s not true, but you’re going to believe whatever you want.
We both know that. Lol.
The real question is, though: how far down your throat is that Putin-faced dildo of yours?
Sorry you’re upset that I’m sharing a realistic take on the war instead of buying into the same propaganda you did.
Most people like you get so angry because you don’t want to admit you’re being manipulated.
Awww, it’s almost self-aware, too? 🥹
More than you, lol.
That’s okay. The future will be a learning experience for you.
So what are Russia’s victory conditions?
Why are you asking me that? I’ve only been talking about Ukraine’s victory conditions which they cannot meet. “Nobody realistically believes Ukraine has a chance of taking Crimea without foreign troops assisting them in combat. Ukrainians are relying on conscription just like Russians are. Many of them don’t want to die in a war they have a very good chance of losing.”
If instead you’re trying to say what Russia’s victory conditions are, then just say it instead of asking me lol.
An army can have good overall morale, and still have frontline soldiers complaining on the phone, especially conscripts.
That’s my point. Selective release of intercepted calls of soldiers complaining, or otherwise expressing negative feelings isn’t unique to armies with poor morale.
The Ukrainians are still humans. They aren’t zealots, or robots. Humans have complex feelings, and they communicate those feelings, sometimes in ways that can be intercepted by enemy surveillance.